General

September 26, 2017

Game of Thrones Live Concert Announces European Tour

Straight from HBO, the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience will be hitting Europe with numerous dates from May to June, and then a resumption of North American touring in September and October. All concerts are set to be overseen personally by award-winning composer Ramin Djawadi. See below for more information and dates:

LOS ANGELES (September 26, 2017) - The critically acclaimed Game of Thrones® Live Concert Experience Featuring Ramin Djawadi will bring the world of Westeros to arenas across Europe starting in May of 2018. Additionally, due to popular demand, a second North American leg of the tour has been added for the autumn of 2018, giving fans the opportunity to watch in wonder as famed composer Ramin Djawadi leads an orchestra and choir performing music from all seven seasons of the iconic, Emmy® Award-winning HBO series. The new dates for the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience Featuring Ramin Djawadi will include new music and footage from Season 7, as well a new custom stage design and mesmerising visuals courtesy of state of the art video technology.

HBO has just announced that long-time series writer and producer Bryan Cogman is the fifth writer behind on the successors. EW’s James Hibberd has what details there are to be had, but understandably HBO are tight-lipped about just what ideas are being developed. A couple of months ago, Linda and I recorded videos discussing some of the areas of Martin’s world and its history that might be of interest.

Of all the writers involved in developing these successor shows, Cogman is unique in being the only one to have worked on the series, and has done so from the start—even back to the original pilot, when he was assistant to David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

HBO has announced that you can now preorder the Season 7 Blu-ray and DVD, and revealed a bunch of new details while also sharing an exclusive clip featuring Harry Lloyd (Viserys) narrating the history of House Targaryen from the Fall of Valyria to Aegon the Conqueror turning his eyes to the Seven Kingdoms. Nice art, I have to say!

Here’s the full list of detaisl from HBO:

New York, N.Y., September 14, 2017 – The record-breaking phenomenon is back with a season that proved to be well worth the wait! Action-packed from start to finish with the series’ most epic battles yet, the HBO® drama series Game of Thrones: The Complete Seventh Season will be available for Digital Download September 25th and on Blu-Ray™ and DVD December 12th. The latest season of Game of Thrones featured the most-watched premiere and finale episodes in HBO history, and the series remains the most-awarded drama series in Emmy® history, with 109 nominations to date and winning the 2015 and 2016 trophy for Best Drama Series.

Available December 12th, The Blu-ray™ and DVD sets are packed with exclusive new bonus content including audio commentaries on every episode, two new behind-the-scenes featurettes, and, for a limited time only, a bonus disc containing Conquest & Rebellion: An Animated History of the Seven Kingdoms, a 45-minute, never-before-seen extension of the Clio Award-winning History & Lore features included on previous individual Blu-ray™ season releases. Narrated by some of the series’ biggest stars including Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) and Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), the companion piece to season 7 reveals the fascinating story of how the world of Westeros as we know it came to be– including what happened the last time a Targaryen invaded the realm!

Available September 25th, the Digital Download release for Game of Thrones: The Complete Seventh Season includes an exclusive new “Creating the North and Beyond” featurette that takes fans behind the scenes of Jon Snow’s epic trek north of The Wall and his latest battle with the Night King’s army.

Blu-ray™ & DVD Exclusive Bonus Features Include:

Conquest & Rebellion: An Animated History of the Seven Kingdoms- From the Game of Thrones realm comes the never-before-seen story of the tumultuous events that shaped the world of Westeros for thousands of years before the series start. Cast members Pilou Asbæk (Euron Greyjoy), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Aidan Gillen (Littlefinger), Conleth Hill (Varys), Harry Lloyd (Viserys Targaryen) and Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) team up to narrate the animated telling of Aegon Targaryen’s attempts to conquer the Seven Kingdoms, written by show writer Dave Hill.
From Imagination to Reality: Inside the Art Department- Extensive two-part featurette detailing the astonishing work of Production Designer Deborah Riley and her Art Department, dissecting the process behind the creation of this season’s incredible new sets, including Dragonstone, Casterly Rock, Highgarden, the Dragonpit, and more.
Fire & Steel: Creating the Invasion of Westeros- Revisit this season’s most pivotal moments with this behind-the-scenes featurette, including interviews with key cast and crew breaking down how fans’ favorite moments were created.
Audio Commentaries- Commentaries on every episode with cast and crew including David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Jacob Anderson, Gwendoline Christie, Liam Cunningham, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, and more.

Blu-ray™ Exclusive Bonus Features Include:

Histories and Lore- 7 new animated pieces that give the history and background of notable season 7 locations and storylines including The Dragonpit, Highgarden, Prophecies of the Known World, the Rains of Castamere and more all narrated by cast members including Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Aidan Gillen, Iain Glen and more.
In-Episode Guides- In-feature resource that provides background information about on-screen characters and locations.

Digital Download Exclusive Bonus Features Include:

Creating the North and Beyond- Behind-the-scenes featurette delving into the massive undertaking of creating and filming the battle in Episode 6 of Season 7.

In Season 7, Daenerys Targaryen has finally set sail for Westeros with her armies, dragons and new Hand of the Queen, Tyrion Lannister. Jon Snow has been named King in the North after defeating Ramsay Bolton in the Battle of the Bastards and returning Winterfell to House Stark. In King’s Landing, Cersei Lannister has seized the Iron Throne by incinerating the High Sparrow, his followers and her rivals in the Sept of Baelor. But as old alliances fracture and new ones emerge, an army of dead men marches on the Wall, threatening to end the game of thrones forever.

After some down time, HBO’s arrangement with global events provider GES—announced in July—has come to fruition with the announcement of the first date for the re-vamped, expanded exhibition. From October 28th, a “limited engagement” (no precise details, but the exhibition website allows tickets to be ordered as far in advance as January 7) will be taking place in Barcelona’s Museu Marítim.

Other locations and dates will be announced in the weeks and months to come. One big difference from prior exhibitions: there’ll be a fee for entry, but this fits with the idea that it’s also on a much larger scale than previous exhibitions.

Last week, Linda provided a review of the very handsome Stark fountain pen from Italian pen maker Montegrappa. That pen was one we bought ourselves, as we do admire fountain pens, but shortly after we did our review we were pleasantly surprised to receive a package straight from HBO: Montegrappa's Targaryen ballpoint pen. Naturally, we just had to review it, and I provide the honors this time around:

Yes, my handwriting is nothing to write home about! But I think that should give those interested in a pen like this a sense of what they're getting. All in all, the Montegrappa series of pens has been one of the unique and interesting Game of Thrones-licensed products. The pens are widely available, especially at HBO's own store:

We've posted a video review of one of Montegrappa's officially-licensed Game of Thrones pens. Montegrappa is a famous name in Italy, a maker of fine pens and other luxury items, and their licensing Game of Thrones has led to four (now five) beautiful pens.

The Stark pen featured above -- a fountain pen with a medium nib; other options include fine and broad nibs, or rollerball or ballpoint versions -- is one of the initial four pens which each take their inspiration from a different Great House. The fifth, and newest pen, is a high-end limited edition in solid sterling silver or even 18 karat gold, but those run anywhere from 3,200 to 52,000(!) euros.

This pen came to us by way of Amazon.com, via a Madrid-based authorized dealer named Iguana Sell (noting them down because they did an amazing job with prompt shipping and really good packaging), but you'll find most of the varieties of the pens available from a number of sellers besides them, some at even lower prices:

Of course, the HBO Store (both the US and EU varieties) also carries the pens as well, and sometimes you'll find special deals on all their Game of Thrones products.

The episode guide for “The Dragon and the Wolf” is now mostly up-to-date, including Linda’s video review of the episode (which we’ll embed below) as well as a book-to-screen consideration trying to piece out what’s inspired by the novels to date, what’s likely to happen in future novels, and what’s definitely not something that fits within the scopes of the books.

As Linda says in her video, there may or may not be a Season 7 overview video from her—stay tuned!

HBO has released details for the final episode of Game of Thrones season 7: “The Dragon and the Wolf”—good title—will have a 79 minute, 43 second running time, making it the longest episode of the series to date. There are rumors that season 8’s episodes will potentially run even longer as a matter of course, but we’ll have to wait and see if that holds true.

While vacationing, Linda and I decided it was time to share some thoughts on the Game of Thrones successors—as GRRM calls them—that HBO and several writers are developing as a potential follow-up to the popular series. In this first video, I lay out some of the details of what we do know about the projects, and some of the parameters that help us understand what the projects aren’t.

With any luck we’ll have the next video—discussing some ideas of stories outside of Westeros that HBO may be considering—up later tonight.

Yesterday Linda managed to film her analysis of “Stormborn”, and it was hurriedly edited together before we left for our vacation. Linda posted it while we were on the road, and only now have I recalled to post about it here!

Not only is the episode guide updated with the video—which we’ll include below—but there’s also the book-to-screen analysis, looking at what details fit the novels, which seem possibly related to future events, and which are simply not possible because of the substantial changes from book to screen.

Well-timed to the season 7 premiere, Funko has prepared a slew of new toys in their popular Pop! figure line -- as well as some new entries in their Dorbz figures, and even two figures debuting in their Rock Candy range of figurines which are focused almost entirely on female heroines and characters of note (we say almost entirely because somehow Harry and Ron from the Harry Potter series managed their way into the line). You can see some of the new selections in the gallery below:

Last year, Linda and I had the great privilege and pleasure of visiting Northern Ireland to look at the Game of Thrones doors scattered throughout the country, all thanks to Tourism Ireland. And this past weekend, we were able to tease that Tourism Ireland had something new up its sleeve to draw attention to Northern Ireland:

Since then, word’s gotten out about the absolutely stunning tapestry—inspired by the famous Bayeux Tapestry created to commemorate every episode of the last six seasons… and with additional panels to come as each new episode of season 7 is released. Fans visiting Belfast will be able to see the tapestry in all its glory at the Ulster Museum from July 22nd.

We’re back from Madrid—you can see our talk at Espacio Fundacion Telefonica on Youtube—but while we were there, Linda managed to film her video for our Dragonstone episode guide. The guide also includes a book-to-screen section, using the new format used since the previous season, now that the material is beyond the scope of the novels.

HBO has sent out a press release discussing the imminent arrival of Game of Thrones on July 16th, including loglines and titles for the first three episodes. You can read them below, but naturally if you consider episode titles spoilers… well, these are spoilers: